The Downfall of Joy
by Morna
Summary: Arthur Dayne's reaction to the death of Elia Martell. The Dawn of the Morning finds himself bowed, bent, and broken. ArthurxElia.


The Downfall of Joy

His knees trembled underneath his weight, never had his armor seemed so heavy. Never had the sword at his back felt so leaden and useless. Never had the White Cloak on his shoulders born down on him as it did then. Never had he been so disarmed and as unmanned as he felt at that moment.

His lips tightened into a thin line to keep the scream that was creeping up his throat from working its way to his tongue. For if he did scream, he knew he would never stop screaming. If he uttered even a hoarse whimper, he would lose himself completely and utterly.

Heat coursed through his veins. He was composed of blood and fire at that moment, taken with a madness that was said to have plagued his distant cousins. Madness and greatness were at war within him as they never had been. Blood and fire. Fire and blood. Those words taunted him. They were his ruin. They had been all along. He had not been so acutely aware of it until now.

His left hand came up and worked through his hair, his fingers scrubbing his scalp to rip out the silver locks. He fought the urge to pluck out his traitorous violet eyes. They had brought him no luck in his lifetime. The beauty and noble lineage of his house had never given him anything but grief to feast on.

Never had he hated himself, felt so useless, so helpless as a babe in the cradle. Bile filled his mouth and tasted foul on his tongue at that image. The children had been butchered like chattel. Aegon torn from his mother's thin, frail arms to be dashed against the stone wall. And Elia, sweet, teasing Elia with her inky black eyes and coppery skin, had been soiled and torn asunder to be thrown away like old rags on a midden heap. She had been used and cast aside by a great beast of man they had told him.

The servants had delivered the news only that morning and immediately fled upon seeing his face. They had not known until then, never even suspected the passions that the Sword of the Morning could be given to. He was Arthur Dayne, the finest and most honorable knight of the Kingsguard. He was the pride of his house, the pillar upon which all of the other members were held aloft. How could anyone have known that the most valiant of them all could ever have a stain upon his cloak?

He gripped the material in one mailed fist and glared at it as if his very gaze could reduce it to ash. He wanted nothing more than to rip it from his shoulders and throw it into the nearest fire. He wanted to toss aside his gilded armor and forget every shred of honor and nobility he had ever been said to possess. The Sword of the Morning wanted to unsheathe Dawn and see the blade slick with blood.

He frowned at the turn of his thoughts. The girl. She was still there in the Tower on the topmost floor. She would let him in, he knew. The she-wolf was still there with the Prince's dark little secret growing in her belly. Why should one prince live when another had died? Why should one mother breathe when the other had not even been given dignity in her death?

He could make short work of the Stark girl. His sword could pierce her heart before she could even give a cry of protest. He could take from Baratheon what had been taken from him. Let him love a corpse. Let him claim a throne for the sake of a dead woman. Let Rhaegar lose what he had torn a kingdom apart for. The damned man could have had any woman he pleased. Why did he have to take Robert's betrothed? Why had his amethyst eyes settled on her and wanted?

He had never understood his friend's obsession from the very start of the mad folly. Kings and princes and lords had taken mistresses from time immemorial, but even Aerys had been wise enough to know what could be his and what could not. How could his immaculate heir have miscalculated so? How could the quiet and reserved prince not have seen how disastrous his attentions to the Stark girl would be? It would have been better had he taken Tywin's daughter right out from under the old lion's nose. But no, he had brought these points up with Rhaegar, even when he knew it was not his place to question his friend and future king. The silver prince was insistent. He had been immovable in his obsession for the girl. He had not listened to reason, and now . . . now it had cost Arthur Dayne the only thing he had ever wanted and could never have.

He had not been happy with his prince's treatment of Elia from the beginning. The Targaryen had been kind but indifferent to the Dornish princess so Arthur had taken up his post silently and simmered futilely. Then it had gone too far. It had spun out of everyone's grasp so quickly. It had gone from wanting to needing so quickly.

His right hand reached up and freed the sword from the scabbard on his back before he realized he had even done anything. Steel slid slowly back into the sheath, and he allowed the cloak gripped in his hand to fall away to his side. Arthur Dayne breathed and closed his eyes.

He settled himself, finding that calm that had served him so well on the battlefield. It did not come easily. It was the memory of a gentle, sly smile and dark, heavy-lidded eyes that gave him the control he sought. Elia Martell had been many things but vengeful had not been one of them. Her husband's betrayal had wounded her more deeply than she had ever confessed to him or his sister, but he had never heard her speak ill of the Stark girl. If anything, oddly, she had seemed to pity the younger woman.

After Lyanna had been spirited away, he had once heard her remark quietly, "The poor fool has no idea what she has gotten herself into."

Her memory did not ease the burning inside him nor did it diminish the flame of his anger, but it stayed his hand. She would not have wanted someone killed in her name, at least not the little she-wolf.

Besides, he was still a knight, and he had been given a duty and a charge. He would see them fulfilled or he would die trying. The prospect brought him strange comfort.


End file.
